01/01/2026
Baking has lately felt like a sort of moving meditation. It quiets my mile-a-minute brain, offering space for the subconscious stuff, the stuff that lives below the surface in the sea of a full and often chaotic day-to-day life, to float up.
2025 was the year of the snake, said to encourage a deep recalibration and the shedding of what no longer serves. An opportunity to take an unflinching look at the parts of ourselves that we do not always love, or maybe are not even fully conscious of. I have tried to lean into this over the past year and am grateful for the many lessons that offered themselves up. The biggest among them has been learning how to regulate my nervous system in a life that rarely slows down.
We now step into the year of the horse - my favorite animal for so many reasons, but in large part for their calming presence, their strength without urgency, and their curious, playful nature. There has been some research suggesting that a horse’s heart generates an electromagnetic field measurable outside the body which creates a quiet field of calm around them, and that it is stronger and more far-reaching than that of the brain. I suspect this is part of why I have always been drawn to horses - they ground me in a way I often find hard to do on my own.
As we move into this next season, I hope to continue to lean in. To look deeper. To get uncomfortable and understand that which is mine to release. I also hope to feel the kind of joy, courage, and freedom I used to experience atop my favorite horse (aptly named Magic 🥰), galloping ba****ck with no reins, fully trusting that she knew - and that we knew together - the ground would meet us.
Happy New Year, dear ones. 🐎
